From: maddox@blake.acs.washington.edu (Tom Maddox)
As promised, Orson Scott Card on "homosexuality." From what
seems to be a regular column, "A Changed Man," in _Sunstone_, a Mormon
journal. This article is titled "The Hypocrites of Homosexuality," and is
from February, 1990.
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When I was an undergraduate theatre student, I was aware, and
not happily so, how pervasive was the reach of the underculture of
homosexuality among my friends and acquaintances. After a while I stopped
being shocked to discover that someone I had known well, or whose talent
I admired, was either moving into or already a part of the
not-so-clandestine network of gay relationships. I learned that being
homosexual does not destroy a person's talent or deny those aspects of
their character that I had already come to love and admire. I did learn that
for most of them their highest allegiance was to their membership in the
community that gave them access to sex. As a not-
particularly-pure-minded heterosexual adolescent, I understood the
intensity of sexual desire; as a student of human communities, I have since
come to understand how character is shaped by -- or surrendered to --
one's allegiances.
One thing is certain: one cannot serve two masters. And when
one's life is given over to one community that demands utter allegiance, it
cannot be given to another. The LDS church is one such community. The
homosexual community seems to be another. And when I read the
statements of those who claim to be both LDS and homosexual, trying to
persuade the former community to cease making their membership
contingent upon abandoning the latter, I wonder if they realize that the
price of such tolerance would be, in the long run, the destruction of the
Church.
We Latter-Day Saints know that we are eternal beings who must
gain control of our bodies and direct our lives toward the good of others in
order to be worthy of an adult role in the hereafter. So the regulation of
sexual drives is designed not just to preserve the community of the Saints
but also to improve and educate the individuals within it. The Lord asks no
more of its members who are tempted toward homosexuality than it does of
its unmarried adolescents, its widows and widowers, its divorced members,
and its members who never marry. Furthermore, the Lord even guides the
sexual behavior of those who are married, expecting them to use their
sexual powers responsibly and in a proportionate role within the marriage.
The argument by the hypocrites of homosexuality that
homosexual tendencies are gentically ingrained in some individuals is
almost laughably irrelevant. We are all genetically predisposed toward some
sin or another; we are all expected to control those genetic predispositions
when it is possible. It is for God to judge which individuals are tempted
beyond their ability to bear or beyond their ability to resist. But it is the
responsibility of the Church and the Saints never to lose sight of the goal of
perfect obedience to laws designed for our happiness.
The average fifteen-year old teenage boy is genetically
predisposed to copulate with anything that moves. We are compassionate
and forgiving of those who cannot resist this temptation, but we do not
regard as adult anyone who has not overcome it; and we can only help
others overcome these "genetic predispositions" by teaching them that we
expect them to meet a higher standard of behavior than the one their own
body teaches them. Are we somehow cruel and over-domineering when we
teach young men and young women that their lives will be better and
happier if they have no memory of sexual intercourse with others to deal
with when they finally are married? On the contrary, we would be heartless
and cruel if we did not.
The hypocrites of homosexuality are, of course, already preparing
to answer these statements by accusing me of homophobia, gay-bashing,
bigotry, intolerance; but nothing that I have said here -- and nothing that
has been said by any of the prophets or any of the Church leaders who have
dealt with this issue -- can be construed as advocating, encouraging, or even
allowing harsh personal treatment of individuals who are unable to resist
the temptation to have sexual relations with persons of the same sex. On
the contrary, the teachings of the Lord are clear in regard to the way we
must deal with sinners. Christ treated them with compassion -- as long as
they confessed that their sin was a sin. Only when they attempted to
pretend their sin was righteousness did he harshly name them for what
they were: fools, hypocrites, sinners. Hypocrites because they were
unwilling to change their behavior and instead attempted to change the law
to fit it; fools because they thought that deceiving an easy deceivable society
would achieve the impossible goal of also deceiving God.
The Church has plenty of room for individuals who are struggling
to overcome their temptation toward homosexual behavior. But for the
protection of the Saints and the good ther persons themselves, the Church
has no room for those who, instead of repenting of homosexuality, wish it to
become an acceptable behavior in the society of the Saints. They are wolves
in sheep's clothing, preaching meekness while attempting to devour the
flock.
No act of violence is ever appropriate to protect Christianity from
those who would rob it of its meaning. None of us are without sin -- the
casting of stones is not our duty or our privilege. All that must ever be done
to answer them is to declare the truth, and to deny them the right to call
themselves Latter-day Saints while proclaiming their false doctrine. Even as
Christ freed from her accusers the woman taken in adultery, he told her,
Go and sin no more.
No community can endure that does not hold its members
responsible for their own actions. Being human, we try from childhood on
to put the blame for the bad things we do on someone or something else.
And to one degree or another, we do accept plausible excuses -- enough, at
least, to allows us to temper our judgment. The American defines the
crime of second degree murder to allow for those whose anger was greatly
provoked, as distinguished from those who coldly kill for gain. Also, we are
willing to alter the terms of confinement of those whose unacceptable
behavior clearly derived from mental illness. In short, we recognize the
principle that those who have as little control over their own behavior as
small children should be treated as compassionately -- yet firmly -- as we
treat small children.
What we do with small children is to establish clear boundaries
and offer swift but mild punishment for crossing them. As their capacity to
understand and obey increases, the boundaries broaden but the
consequences of crossing them become more severe.
Within the Church, the young person who experiments with
homosexual behavior should be counseled with, not excommunicated. But
as the adolescent moves into adulthood and continues to engage in sinful
practices far beyond the level of experimentation, then the consequences
within the Church must grow more severe and more long-lasting;
unfortunately, they may also be more public as well.
This applies also to the polity, the community of citizens at large.
Laws against homosexual behavior should remain on the books, not to be
indiscriminately enforced against anyone who happens to be caught
violating them, but to be used when necessary to send a clear message that
those who flagrantly violate society's regulation of sexual behavior cannot be
permitted to remain as acceptable, equal citizens within that society.
The goal of the polity is not to put homosexuals in jail. The goal
is to discourage people from engaging in homosexual practices in the first
place, and, when they nevertheless proceed in their homosexual behavior,
to encourage them to do so discreetly, so as not to shake the confidence of
the community in the polity's ability to provide rules for safe, stable,
dependable marriage and family relationships.
Those who would be members of a community must sacrifice the
satisfaction of some of their individual desires in order to maintain the
existence of that community. They must, in other words, obey the rules
that define what that community is. Those who are not willing or able to
obey the rules should honestly admit the fact and withdraw from
membership.
Thus, just as America, a democratic society, is under no
obligation to preserve some imagined "right" of citizens who wish to use
their freedom to overthrow that democracy and institute tyranny, so
likewise the LDS church, which is founded on the idea that the word of God
as revealed through his prophets should determine the behavior of the
Saints, is under no obligation to protect some supposed "right" of those
members who would like to persuade us that neither God nor the prophets
has the authority to regulate them.
If the Church has not the authority to tell its members that they
may not engage in homosexual practices, then it has no authority at all. And
if we accept the argument of the hypocrites of homosexuality that their sin
is not a sin, we have destroyed ourselves.
Furthermore, if we allow ourselves to be intimidated by our fear
of the world's censure into silence in the face of attempts by homosexuals
to make their sin acceptable under the laws of the polity, then we have
abandoned our role as teachers of righteousness.
The repentant homosexual must be met with forgiveness. Even
hypocritical homosexuals must be treated individually with compassion. But
the collective behavior of the hypocrites of homosexuality must be met with
our most forceful arguments and our complete intolerance of their lies. To
act otherwise is to give more respect to the opinions of men than to the
judgments of God.
Tolerance is not the fundamental virtue, to which all others must
give way. The fundamental virtue is to love the Lord with all our heart,
might, mind, and strength; and then to love our neighbor as ourself.
Despite all the rhetoric of the hypocrites of homosexuality about how if we
were true Christians, we would accept them fully without expecting them to
change their behavior, we know that the Lord looks upon sin without the
least degree of tolerance, and that he expects us to strive for perfection.
That we must treat sinners kindly is true; that we must
courageously and firmly reject sin is also true. Those whose "kindness"
causes them to wink at sin are not being kind at all, for the only hope of joy
that these people have is to recognize their sin and repent of it. True
kindness is to be ever courteous and warm toward individuals, while
confronting them always with our rejection of any arguments justifying their
self- gratification. That will earn us their love and gratitude in the day of
their repentance, even if during the time they still embrace their sins they
lash out at us as if we were their enemies.
And if it happens that they never repent, then in the day of their
grief they cannot blame us for helping them deceive and destroy
themselves. That is how we keep ourselves unspotted by the blood of this
generation, even as we labor to help our brothers and sisters free
themselves from the tyranny of sin.
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